From a photograph by George L. Beam
From a photograph by George L. Beam
It was plainly unfinished. Walls had risen in some places higher than in others. As yet there was no roofing. No rooms had been plastered. Of internal finishing little was completed, and of contents, of course, there was none. The stone hammers and other utensils of the builders were found lying about as if thrown down at day's close.
The kivas, although circular, are unlike those of Cliff Palace, inasmuch as they are above ground, not subterranean. The mortar used in pointing shows the impress of human hands; no trowels were used. The walls exhibit many stones incised with complicated designs, largely geometric; some may be mason's marks; others are decorative or symbolic. These designs indicate a marked advance over those in Far View House; in fact they are far more complicated and artistic than any in the southwest.
Bare and ineloquent though its unfinished condition left it, the religious purposes of the entire building are clear to the archæologist in its form. And, as if to make conjecture certainty, a shrine was uncovered on the corner-stone of the outer wall which frames in solid stone walls a large fossil palm-leaf whose rays strongly suggest the sun!
It requires no imagination to picture the effect which the original discovery of this image of their god must have had upon a primitive community of sun-worshippers. It must have seemed to them a divine gift, a promise, like the Ark of the Covenant, of the favor of the Almighty. It may even have first suggested the idea of building this temple to their deity.